On Tuesday, an appeal trial for the Ryoko Hirosue defamation case was held in the Tokyo High Court. Back in June, a lower court had ruled against publisher Shogakukan, agreeing with Hirosue's claim that her reputation had been damaged by a false article published in the magazine Josei Seven. The article had accused her of having an affair, accompanied by purported photos of her and another man. While Hirosue sought 23 million yen in damages at the time, she was only awarded 1.2 million.

In the appeal trial, the Tokyo High Court again ruled in Hirosue's favor, but increased Shogakukan's fine to 2.3 million yen.

Several reports of celebrity babies made the papers on Wednesday. At the top of the list was actress Kyoko Hasegawa, who revealed on her official website that she is now pregnant. She is said to be in her third month. Hasegawa just married Porno Graffiti guitarist Haruichi Shindo in October.

Also expecting a child is model Atsuko Morita, the wife of CHEMISTRY's Yoshikuni Dochin. This will be their third, as they already have two young sons. Morita is expected to give birth in the spring.

Meanwhile, Kentaro Kobuchi of Kobukuro became the father of twins on Tuesday. His wife gave birth to one boy and one girl. These are their first children, even though they have been married since 1997.

And finally, gravure idol Leah Dizon revealed through her blog on Sunday that her baby will be a girl. Dizon shocked fans back in October when she suddenly announced that she was pregnant and had gotten married.

Last week, EXILE released their third best album of the year, "EXILE BALLAD BEST." Its first-week sales added up to 944,000 copies to top the weekly charts. This makes them the first group since ZARD in 1999 to release three #1 albums in a single year. Among male artists, they are only the second to achieve the feat, after Boowy did it in 1988. "EXILE BALLAD BEST" has also set this year's record for the highest initial sales. The last album to exceed 900,000 in its first week was Kumi Koda's "BEST ~second session~" in 2006.

The latest "Macross Frontier" soundtrack took #2 with 86,000 copies. ORANGE RANGE's latest ranked 7th, while a new DJ KAORI mix was 9th and Ayaka Hirahara was 10th.

On the singles chart, KAT-TUN's "White X'mas" sold 250,000 copies to claim the group's 8th consecutive #1. GReeeeN, Chiaki Ishikawa, Ikimono Gakari, and Nightmare also had new songs in the Top 5. Gackt was #7 and Dragon Ash was #10.

Ayumi Hamasaki has been chosen to provide the theme song for the Hollywood-produced live-action "Dragonball" movie. All releases of the film worldwide will use her new rock tune "Rule," sung in Japanese. Director James Wong, said to be a big fan of Hamasaki, extended her the offer.

It is rare for a song by a Japanese artist to be used in all international releases of a movie. And for Hamasaki, this will also be her first time doing a song for a foreign film.

The movie is being released under the title "Dragonball Evolution" in Japan on March 13, ahead of the U.S. release in April. The film is expected to be shown in more than 60 countries around the world.

Noriyuki Higashiyama (Shonentai), Masahiro Matsuoka (TOKIO), and Tadayoshi Okura (Kanjani8) are joining forces to create a special unit called The SHIGOTONIN. The three are appearing together in the TV Asahi series "Hissatsu Shigotonin 2009" next season, and naturally they will sing the show's theme song, titled "Kyouka Suigetsu." The single goes on sale February 4.

"Hissatsu Shigotonin 2009" starts on January 9, airing every Friday at 9:00pm.

A little more information has been revealed about the two "Nodame Cantabile" movies that were recently announced. First of all, Sankei Sports has reported a slightly different schedule for the films. The first one will be released in December 2009, while the second will be released about three months later in the spring. According to distributor Toho, no Japanese film sequel has ever been released so quickly after the first movie.

Producer Hiroki Wakamatsu said that it would have been impossible to fit the story into a single two-hour film, so it was decided that there would be two movies. Another producer, Kuga Maeda, expressed his confidence in the project, saying, "When you see Part I, you'll surely want to see Part II right away."

Filming is scheduled to start next May and last for a total of five months, including a long period in Europe. In order to not disappoint fans of classical music, the producers have requested a famous orchestra to perform at a well-known concert hall for the movie.

As reported earlier, the movies continue the story from the two-part drama special in January, following the musical progress of Nodame (Juri Ueno) and Chiaki (Hiroshi Tamaki). As for the romance between the two, Wakamatsu did not divulge any information, simply saying that he does not yet know the details.